Posted on 04/08/2014 4:07:26 PM PDT by sergeantdave
For 20 years, a tough-as-leather Nevada rancher and the federal government have been locked in a bitter range war over cattle grazing rights.
This weekend the confrontation got worse, when the feds hired contract cowboys to start seizing Cliven Bundy's cattle, which have been grazing on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The government officials brought a show of force that included dozens of armed agents in SUVs and helicopters.
Bundy, 67, who has been a rancher all his life, accuses BLM of stampeding over on his rights.
“This is a lot bigger deal than just my cows,” Bundy told FoxNews.com. “It’s a statement for freedom and liberty and the Constitution.”
The fight involves a 600,000-acre area under BLM control called Gold Butte, near the Utah border. The vast and rugged land is the habitat of the protected desert tortoise, and the land has been off-limits for cattle since 1998. Five years before that, when grazing was legal, Bundy stopped paying federal fees for the right.
“For more than two decades, cattle have been grazed illegally on public lands in northeast Clark County,” the BLM said in a statement. “BLM and (the National Park Service) have made repeated attempts to resolve this matter administratively and judicially. Impoundment of cattle illegally grazing on public lands is an option of last resort.”
But Bundy said he has grazed cattle on the land for decades, and his father and father's father did long before his 1,000 cattle roamed the area. He has long defied orders from bureaucrats he says are bent on running him out of business.
Just before the round-up began this weekend, Bundy said federal agents surrounded his 150-acre ranch. His son was arrested on Sunday in an incident involving the agents....
More at link.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Another victory lap for zer0’s minions? And higher prices for everyone!
Those who rely upon the public teat for their sustenance shouldn’t be surprised when it’s plucked away.
is thia “Bull Crapping” arrest??
They are not relying on the public teat, since grazing ‘rights’ are paid for by the rancher. In this case, however, it seems the rancher stopped paying...so yeah, his cattle probably needed to be seized.
“The trouble started when Bundy stopped paying grazing fees in 1993. He said he didn’t have to because his Mormon ancestors worked the land since the 1880s, giving him rights to the land.
“We own this land,” he said, not the feds.”
The guy is a nut.
:: He has long defied orders from bureaucrats he says are bent on running him out of business. ::
No. He is defying a government that wants to prove to him who owns him, his land, his family and his cattle.
You vill comply! Papers, bitte!
The “fee” for federal grazing rights never reflects the economic value of the land. The government has no more business picking the winners and losers in the cattle business than it does in any other industry.
I love it when fascist bureaucrats call themselves and their hired thugs pretend to be "the american people".
His family having relied upon the largess of the taxpayer for 150 years doesn’t make it any more virtuous.
Is he a nut? Or is he invoking the right of adverse posession? (AKA “Squatter’s Rights).
The losers and winners were already picked when people acquired deed to water access land. Without it, no access to water, all the grazing land on the planet doesn’t mean squat. For extra credit, look up how much of Nevada is Federal Land. I think you will be surprised.
You know what? My steaks and hamburger come from my own cattle...which I raise and fatten on my own land. If this fella can’t make it in the marketplace applying his own talents and risking his own capital, then he should fail.
Or worse...
AG Eric Holder was responsible for 168 deaths in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing…and more
December 19, 2011
"Documents obtained by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit show then Clinton Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder authorized members of the FBI to provide explosives to Oklahoma City bombing criminals Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols immediately prior to the April, 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building.
Holder had authorized the FBI to provide the explosives to McVeigh and Nichols in conjunction with a Clinton Administration undercover operation named PATCON, an acronym for “Patriot Conspiracy.” As Jesse Trentadue describes it, “PATCON was designed to infiltrate and incite… militia[s] and evangelical Christians to violence so that the Department of Justice could crush them."
Both Waco and Ruby Ridge are now known to have been PATCON inspired, Department of Justice plots.
Shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing, Holder instructed FBI agents to recover from Terry Nichols any remainder of the explosives the Bureau had provided him and McVeigh. To the chagrin of Eric Holder, the explosives were later discovered by another agency, complete with the fingerprints of Nichols, McVeigh and 2 FBI agents. Holder had reportedly offered Nichols respite from the death penalty for his cooperation in recovering the explosives. Obviously the Deputy Attorney General considered covering up his criminal complicity in the bombing eminently worth sparing Nichols just punishment for the murders of 168 innocent Americans.
Jesse Trentadue accidentally came across PATCON while investigating the murder of his brother Kenneth at the hands of the Clinton Department of Justice. An FBI informant familiar with the Oklahoma City bombing story, Kenneth was found hanged in his cell after having been jailed by the FBI. Though an official FBI report had listed Kenneth as a suicide, it was obvious that he had been severely beaten and his throat cut.
Upon Jesse taking the federal government to court, a federal judge ruled that the FBI had not only lied about Kenneth Trentadue’s death, the Bureau was also found guilty of having destroyed evidence concerning the case. In 2001 the Trentadue family was awarded $1.1 million, $250,000 of which remains a reward for information leading to the conviction of Kenneth Trentadue’s killers. In late November, Newsweek magazine was to run a story revealing the history of PATCON, the Oklahoma City bombing complete with the part played by Eric Holder, the FBI initiated killings at Waco and Ruby Ridge and the subsequent murder of Kenneth Trentadue. But as Mike Vanderboegh, owner of the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog reports, Newsweek senior editor Tina Brown was “convinced” by members of the Clinton and Obama Administrations to remove certain information from the lengthy R M Schneiderman article. So although originally approved for publication by Newsweek editor John Solomon, the article which finally appeared in the magazine had been cut to pieces, undoubtedly providing great relief to Holder, Clinton, Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno and many other current and former members of the Department of Justice.
It hardly needs pointed out that this and other extraordinary stories of corruption and facilitation of murder by the Clinton and Obama Administrations stink to high heaven. A number of links for further reading have been provided below. Rest assured that we at Coach is Right will continue to pursue the stories of PATCON, Fast and Furious and any other examples of executive branch corruption. It’s doubtful we will want for material."
Aren’t cattle rustlers supposed to be hung?
Except in a few very limited cases, it should be forbidden for land to be “owned” by federal or state governments.
Only individuals or small groups should own land.
All that BLM land should be opened up for homestead.
Also, I'm not trying to be mean to Mr. Bundy's parents, but the reason that he has been probably needlessly fighting the federal government all these years is because his parents probably did not make sure that he was taught about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers.
The government doesn’t pick winners and losers. It sells stuff to buyers willing to pay. And yes, it DOES reflect the value of the land, since it competes with private land.
So, as long as a government program competes with private landowners, it's OK? Seriously?
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